


Use Me For Good

by Dragestil



Series: We Are In Harmony [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Past Violence, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragestil/pseuds/Dragestil
Summary: Genji has been holding back his feelings for so long, but he does not have to face them alone when they all come out.





	Use Me For Good

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like to see more of my work, please visit my [Tumblr](http://dragestil.tumblr.com)

He had come so far from his days at Blackwatch. He had come so far since his transformation into something both more and less human. He still had his off days, but they were far fewer with further between now. Sometimes he still needed his mentor’s steadying hands to guide him toward his purpose and path, though. It was so easy to find himself wound up within his own head.

“Focus,” Zenyatta said, pulling Genji’s mind back into the present moment. “You must feel the Iris within you.”

Genji obeyed, stilling his thoughts and focusing on the space between his hands. He tried to feel all of the intricate carvings on the metal orb he was holding at the same time. He tried also to feel the spaces within the orb. He imagined a golden light within himself and willed it through his hands to fill all the spaces between them. As the light shifted, he opened his eyes. Zenyatta was seated before him, surrounded by eight harmonious orbs. And between his own hands, Genji could see one orb pulsing yellow. 

“We are in harmony,” Zenyatta said, and Genji could hear the pride in his voice.

He closed his eyes again as he felt emotion creeping up on him. He lost the concentration to maintain the harmony orb in his grasp. His fingers tightened around the sphere as he clutched it to his stomach. It had been a while since his feelings had crept up on him like this, and he was lost in the grip of his memories.

He was young and reckless, the playboy of the Shimada clan - the youngest son with nothing to lose but time. His morals were fast and loose, only sticking when they served his purposes. He took greedily and consumed all in excess. But this gratuitous consumption could not go unchecked forever. And then he was staring down his own older brother.

He felt what should have been killing blows all over again. He was dying on the ground all over again. But then he was being evacuated, rescued, saved all over again. He was learning how to control his drastically modified and cybernetically enhanced body. He was relearning everything he had learned in his youth training as a ninja. And all of this was racing through his head in mere moments.

He was fighting against the world he was from for the organisation that had saved his life, but changed it forever. Then he was losing sight of it all, and sight of himself. He was lost and confused and conflicted and unsure. How was he meant to live with all of these choices he had made? How was he supposed to find a place he belonged when he was neither man nor omnic? His chest heaved with the emotion of it all, and he felt the all over tightening in his muscles.

“Genji!” Zenyatta moved quickly, kneeling just in front of Genji and settling his hands on Genji’s shoulders. “Come back, Genji. We are here.”

Genji’s eyes snapped open as he dropped the orb into his lap. His hands reached instinctively up to grasp at Zenyatta’s arms, and he inhaled sharply as if he was surfacing for air after a long dive. Zenyatta did not falter and allowed Genji to take his time in settling back down. He leaned back only when Genji’s fingers were no longer holding his shoulders in a death grips. He let go as Genji did though only so he could reach down and catch Genji’s hands in his own. 

“You are doing well, Genji.”

“I keep fai-”

“You are doing well,” Zenyatta repeated firmly. “You have made much progress. You have successfully manifested an orb of harmony. The Iris is within you. And you are now reacting to the events that brought you here. It is no failure to feel.”

It was hard to accept that. Neither of his previous lives had much spare room for such trivial things as emotions. He was at first too carefree and then too detached. But Zenyatta’s hands over his own gave him undeniable comfort, and Zenyatta’s words crept into his heart. They slowly took hold and Genji gave in to his pain at last.

He allowed the undying ache to consume him, if only for a few minutes. He gave the betrayal and desperation and anger their time to overwhelm him. And finally he let himself grieve - for the brother who murdered him, for the body he had lost, for the simpler days of his past, for the time he had spent alone. He trembled as it all came crashing in on him. It was so much that it left him shaking even as it all began to settle and pass. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Zenyatta,” Genji began, speaking slowly as he tried to formulate his thoughts into words, “can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Genji. You may always ask questions and speak freely.”

“Can we ever find true forgiveness?”

“You never ask the easy questions,” Zenyatta said, though there was no hint of annoyance in his tone. “Are you asking for yourself or for the sake of another?”

“Both,” Genji replied after a moment’s pause. “Hanzo, what he did to me...but was I no better after that?”

“There were reasons that guided both of you, without regard to what is right or wrong. You have both changed from those days, though, have you not?”

Genji fell silent as he looked down and away from Zenyatta. He could not meet his mentor’s gaze in the moment. There were too many thoughts racing around his head, and he was still embarrassed by his breakdown. Even though Zenyatta encouraged him to have emotional honesty with himself, it was still hard to let go of his old habits and training to contain it all. After several minutes of stillness between them, Genji finally pulled back.

He settled back into his meditative stance with one of Zenyatta’s orbs resting comfortably between his hands. His eyes slid shut as he hummed faintly to himself to bring himself back into a tranquil state of mind and being. His muscles began to loosen as he felt the shift in the air around him that he knew meant Zenyatta had returned to his own meditative position.

“The Iris embraces us,” Zenyatta said quietly as they both found themselves enveloped in a golden glow.

“Let it use me for good,” Genji murmured.

“You are good.”


End file.
